


The Art of Having a Tea Party

by DarkPoisonousLove



Category: Winx Club
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Childhood Memories, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Memories, Missing Scene, Multi, Tumblr Prompt, Tumblr request, set after 3x14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25669222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkPoisonousLove/pseuds/DarkPoisonousLove
Summary: Tea parties have always been a constant of Griffin and Faragonda's friendship - always changing to accommodate its ever evolving nature but still able to provide the warmth and comfort they need every time. And even after life has drained all happiness out of them, there's nothing that can take away the strength and magic of their bond.
Relationships: Faragonda & Griffin (Winx Club), mentions of past Griffin/Valtor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	The Art of Having a Tea Party

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be lighthearted and then it turned into angst. But there's still plenty of friendship feels to hang on to just like they do!

Griffin didn’t turn to look at her despite the screech of the door. The hinges had been silent before the witch’s arrival but peacefulness seemed to be her worst enemy currently so she’d forced her agony on the environment in an attempt to alleviate it. There was no startle, no alarm spilling from her even though she was harboring worry the size of Cloud Tower. She refused to let it go as if it was the only thing she had left to fill the hole her powerlessness had pushed her into and bury herself alive.

“Tea?” Faragonda offered, hoping the comforting warmth of their shared favorite drink could soothe the burns on Griffin’s soul despite their proven persistence during the last seventeen years. There was nothing more for her to do than provide the shoulder Griffin could lay her burdened mind on and the hands Griffin could put her tortured heart in. She could only share her pain and couldn't crush it to dust no matter how hard she would clench her fists. And clutching at Griffin to pull her away from her heartbreak would only bruise her more than Valtor had already managed to with his refusal to lay his magic on her. He hadn’t wanted her, had only wanted her to suffer, and that was exactly what she was doing, as devoted to loving as she’d ever been.

Griffin turned around to face her, the light in her eyes ready to flicker out underneath the exhaustion of keeping the tears from falling. “We just need a party to go with it,” she said, no mirth in her smile when he’d taken all of it. He’d taken her love and her happiness but he hadn’t been able to take away their friendship. He didn’t have the might to deprive her of their familiarity and the history between them that outdated his fingerprints on her life. He hadn’t touched every part of her, nor would he ever get to do that. She wasn’t his to have and neither were her students.

“We’ll have that.” Faragonda waved her hand to catch the reference and make t tangible to remind her friend how much they’d been through only to come out of victorious. They’d survived every single punch–among which a war, the loss of their friends, the Ancestral Witches and Valtor once already–life had thrown at them to find themselves drinking tea together again. Just like they always had. “For now all I can give you is memories, though,” she gestured to the pot of jasmine tea she’d conjured on the little coffee table that seemed so small compared to all the moments rising out of the steam for both of them to see them like they were pages in a book.

Griffin nodded and made her way to the bed for Faragonda’s heart to relax along with her as she sat down. There was so much resistance in her muscles every time she was offered comfort that Faragonda tensed instinctively each time she let her hope reach out to Griffin just to be there with her and keep her company. She would go everywhere with her no matter how taut her whole body was in its struggle not to snap under Griffin’s refusal to let her take some of her misery off her shoulders or how badly she’d scald her fingers by touching her friend only to feel Griffin’s own hand slipping out of hers as it was shaken by the shudders running through her like her heart had been stuffed in a freezer for the last seventeen years only for Valtor to force it back in her chest with his return.

Griffin took the cup of tea she handed her, her hands steady and unyielding as if they’d been carved out of stone. “We used to spill so much of it when we first started having those tea parties together,” the ghost of a smile that possessed her lips still had enough power to drive up the corners of her mouth into her cheeks like chisels trying to shatter her face in pieces. “It was all over the carpet,” her voice echoed in the empty silence around them that was only not murdered thanks to the energy she was exerting not to let her heels pierce her brain with the sounds of her restlessness. It wasn’t the plush quietness of her childhood room that they’d played in once but Faragonda was content enough with simply having Griffin’s breath reviving the memories.

“It was a good thing your mother had magic,” she let herself bring back Emalyn as well only because she knew they were all safe inside the past of their friendship. Griffin wouldn't let anything touch it–no more than Faragonda would–and even her mother’s murder couldn't take away all the warmth she’d given them both. She’d practically been raising Faragonda for years as well and she’d also nurtured the bond between the two of them. In a way, she was still living through it, through the family she’d given them.

“I’m pretty sure that was a period in which she actually regretted that. Considering that I only had my magic because I inherited it from her,” Griffin continued the thread of the conversation with her own words and wove into it more moments to revisit. Like all those times she’d pushed her newly developing powers to move her stuffed toys around as if they were alive–which was, incidentally, how they’d usually ended up spilling the tea and scalding themselves until Griffin’s mother had forbidden them to have real tea without her supervision–to give their parties a real sense of celebration and vitality and to impress Faragonda as if she hadn’t already deemed her the most astonishing person she’d ever known. And that had never changed no matter what had happened to their powers or their hearts.

“Well, if I was even half as scared as she was when you passed out, then I can certainly understand that,” Faragonda clutched at her tea cup to have the burning heat of it grounding her in the present and away from the sight of the freezing paleness of Griffin’s face and the fleeting rising and falling of her chest slipping through her fingers.

“You know I was always a showoff.” Griffin sipped her tea as if to scorch every last word of truth trying to make its way up her tongue. As if that could incinerate the traces that day had left on Faragonda’s heart and later on her mind once she’d learned why Griffin had been pushing herself so hard. As if anything could erase that when Griffin kept following into the same patterns over and over again giving away every piece of herself and blaming herself for not having more, for not having enough even after all the times she’d been her everything.

“I know you were strong enough for both of us,” Faragonda caught Griffin’s gaze, letting the deep blue of her eyes put out the fires melting the gold of Griffin’s to plate her guilt like it was a trophy. She’d always been the witch Faragonda had had to be but could have never become. Not with someone like her own mother imposing on her more worthlessness than the world had forced on Griffin. “And I wouldn't have even discovered that if you hadn’t insisted so recklessly on carrying both our weight on your shoulders.” Griffin had tried to be her magic as well as her friend on their first–and her last–day in Cloud Tower only to reveal that she’d been her hope all along. She’d gotten caught by the teachers and it had finally shined a light on why their powers seemed to always go together just like their friendship. “You were too smart for me to figure it out and I had to learn it the hard way.” Griffin had always made sure her pretense was as small as Faragonda had needed it to be to believe it, always conjuring just a few drops of tea in her cup to make sure she wouldn't wash away the cover of her deception. She’d done everything to share her magic with Faragonda when she hadn’t had her own.

And there she was, shaking her head and parting her lips to let through the wedge she was about to drive between them despite all the previous times they’d pulled it out and let the wound heal.

“I’m glad you didn’t have to carry my burden on your shoulders for the rest of your life,” Faragonda reached to wipe away the hurt leaking out of Griffin’s eyes and leaving its burning traces over her cheeks. Now that it was out of Griffin’s system she could take it away. “I had to rely on my own wings and that wouldn't have happened with your magic keeping me from falling out of the sky.” Being rejected by both herself and Griffin had felt impossible to overcome but she’d finally found it in herself to come out of the shadow behind Griffin’s back that the her friend had sheltered her for so long and step next to her, hold her hand and be the support that Griffin had been for her.

“I abandoned our friendship,” Griffin sobbed out, still carrying all the responsibility in their relationship, “twice.” Even when she didn’t have to make all the choices now that Faragonda could make her own.

“And you came back twice.” Faragonda took a deep breath feeling her soul reentering her body all over again at the power the words held. Griffin had left her whole life behind several times but she’d always come back to her. She’d escaped death but she’d found her way back to their friendship when nothing could kill it. Not even all the bitterness she was given for her magic.

“It wasn’t that hard when there was someone waiting for me,” Griffin’s tears rolled right down her face and into her abandoned tea to keep it warm with their heated care for each other. And to drown the coldness Valtor’s return had painted all over her features to freeze the life right inside her and force it to die there and make her rot from the inside out like he’d been without her. Faragonda had felt that for herself and knew how hard it was to sustain yourself without Griffin’s magic to do that for you.

“I was only here because you let me find my own strength, Griffin,” Faragonda’s fingers encircled Griffin’s wrist to imprint the words there in a bracelet she could wear like the monad necklace she hadn’t taken off ever since Faragonda had given it to her for her promotion to Cloud Tower’s headmistress.

She’d found her own hope, found her own power in the unrelenting faith she’d put in her friendship with Griffin. She’d become the fairy she’d always been meant to be once Griffin’s talent to use all the negativity shoved inside her to create something beautiful straight out of it had been taken away. She’d become capable of standing next to Griffin instead of leaning on her and their friendship had survived a war and their own downfall, even their pride, on the solid foundation of their shoulders as they both carried it.

“Now we can be strong together.”

Faragonda’s magic whisked the cups of tea away to the table as she was positive the intensity of the emotions had already erased them out of Griffin’s memory and opened her arms to catch her witch in their shared feelings. It was far from a party but she would always celebrate their friendship when it was the reason why Griffin was never helpless and she was never hopeless. She could always find more faith between her fingers tangled with Griffin’s and she was right there to be Griffin’s strength after she’d already given all of hers away.


End file.
